POSTER - ICKY

Elections and posters go hand in hand

Mug-plastered all over the city.

I would like to be on posters too!

There’s Glory! And there! And there! And there!

There, there, there…

Going by the Law of Diminishing Returns

You’d actually be going

Wow!

Oh yeah?

Shucks!

Crap!

That’s cheap!

Sic!

Forget it!

Turn away!

Silence.

Posters…first lesson in self-defeat.

 

 

PIGEON TALK

GLORY TO PIGEON:

Greedy Pigeon!

Don’t fight with your wife!

Give her some rice

You’ve chased away the sparrows

Why’s your outlook so narrow?

Learn charity and kindness

Don’t act like Royal Highness

And you’d better meditate

Your stress levels aren’t great

Your eyes are so red

It’s time you went to bed

PIGEON TO GLORY:

Kurrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!

 

I wonder how far I can go?

she wondered

Not this far, I said,

Really? So it's that far then!

And by that far she meant

The whole world

 

Heart words beat wise quotes any time

strangers most of you, yet

somethings resonate, don't they

in a world of changing equations

yet, global, reachable, connected

yet not redefined

friendship remains based on mutual

love, respect and trust.

 

LIFE AND LEMONS

Lemon-colored negligee, hair tousled

don't care that my window is open

the street outside empty,

quarantined and anxiously scanning oximeters -

measuring each breath while regrets pile up.

Pour myself a glass of warm water

with lemon and honey - just so, the lemon

let Sunlight in...and Air...

Can Covid fly in too with lemon Sunlight?

Neighbor's doors strung Neem leaves guarantee

purity with lemon Sunlight that might be closing in on Doomsday

that is not because of Big Bang but because the Human Race has lost the ability to breathe and talk of the Second Coming of Jesus now

they of the Making who World Wared I & II

whole cities shot down and Twin Towers bombed.

And I, in my lemon-colored negligee

sit idly sipping tea wondering when I'd be able to travel again? -

Not travel per se but the option to

meanwhile choose and choice being between Swiggy and Zomato while watching Netflix.

 

POINTING

I mean it God

when I say I don't want to hurt

I don't to be unforgiving

but when someone comes along

deliberately gloating, hurting

taunting, flaunting, jaunting

counting, daunting

can you wonder that I'm pointing?

but know it's not who I am

It's my anger speaking up for me

So, God, know I mean it

when I say I don't want to hurt

I don't want to be unforgiving.

 

MEASURING TAPE

You, the Queen, I, the crumb 'neath the table—

Non-existent

till you heard them exclaim I was beautiful

smart and talented.

And then you noticed, startled.

Is that when

you started measurement points

next to my natural growth points?

For each time I lost, I shrunk in your eyes

once again

to the crumb on the floor.

For each time I won

you pretended you didn't know...

Did it help ease the pain of when you felt you didn't 'measure up?'

 

So absorbed in your game

of measuring up and down my measurements

you forgot your own—

that you were beautiful too!

And smart and talented.

Futile traits now I guess—'cause

you are now just a Measuring Tape.

I wish I knew how to set you free of your misery—

from the price you've paid for knowing me.

And I'm sorry for the pain I've caused you

albeit unwittingly for I was only a child

Even now

I wouldn’t know how to try though...'cause

I still don't know how to measure.

 

TOPSY TURVY

Milestones can be homeward

Kissing can be a bite

Laughing can be silence

And wrong can be right

unravelling can be knitting

Clean can be a dump

Losing can be winning

Winning can be a slump

Oh yes!

the Earth can stay still

and the Sun spin around instead

And I can say I can live without you but mean

Without you I’d be dead.

 

DON'T DO IT

Tell me - 

how can I reconcile myself to the fact 

that the story of millions of children like me

who are being sexually abused by the minute

my own experience

and my coming to you to listen, not understand

'cause you can't comprehend the terror, the helplessness

the evil that exists - in your pristine state -

you who have spent your whole life wrapped in a comfort bubble 

of delusion, 

feeding off whims and fancies, and where religion is defined

as must-know-more-than-the-others, a kind of lingua that puts you

in a cult, self-placed on a pedestal of pompous righteousness from where you deem fit to preach.

Yes - 

how can i reconcile myself to the fact that the tears and animal-like terror cries from the deep throats of children

you pacify with the complacent 'I'll pray for you.'

FIRST LOVE

Dear First Love,

Years ago

Young and uncertain

Our eyes met

Our paths converged

Only to diverge 

In tangents

You, in search of your dream

I, in search of mine.

Through it all,

Did you feel the void even then

As I did?

Now that our paths converge once again—

And once again,

Our eyes meet

We blush even now...

Obliterating 

The years between.

 

MORNING THOUGHTS

Fish in bowl

Bowl in Sunlight

Dancing waters

Crazy colours

Coloured pebbles

Leaf

Little fish resting on leaf…

I sip my coffee

At peace with the world.

 

I AM NOTHING

This morning

I looked in the mirror

A beautiful person stared back at me

but then...

I looked at the slim stereotype model

and compared to her

I don't matter

I am NOTHING.

I am a homemaker

through the day

I cook amazing meals

I clean, I take care of all my family's needs

I am their friend, my children's teacher,

a tailor when they tear their clothes

a nurse when they're sick

a storyteller, a counsellor par excellence

an interior decorator, a artist when they ask those charts in school..

but then...

I saw this woman with her handbag 

making for her office, beating the traffic

and earning money

and compared to her

I don't matter

I am NOTHING.

I am so good at computers

in office, I am the go-to person

to resolve a glitch

the one they depend on to get things done.

Am in a steady relationship 

and I further my studies

and I can sing like a nightingale

but then...

I look at those who have a bevy of friends 

around them

and seem to breeze through life

and compared to them

I don't matter

I am NOTHING.